SWEL Extensions

SWEL Teams Overview

ESL teachers and content area teachers are frequently asked to collaborate and co-teach in order to support the language learners in their schools and classrooms, yet their access to training on how to collaborate is limited, if provided at all. SWEL Teams is a workshop designed for ESL teachers, their general education teacher colleagues, and administrators. This workshop consists of the following six modules:

  1. Why is Change so Difficult? Understanding What it Takes to Create Lasting Change in Schools
  2. Why is Change so Difficult? Examining Our Personal Responses to Change
  3. Work Styles: Analyzing How You and Your Team Can Leverage Individual Work Styles to Support Language Learners
  4. Collaboration: Examining Models for Teamwork that Supports Language Learners in All Classrooms Across the Entire School Day
  5. Co-Planning: Making the most of the indirect service provided by language teachers to support general education practices
  6. Strategic Planning for SWEL Teams: Creating an Action Plan for Non-Evaluative Peer Coaching and Collaboration

Audience: ESL teachers, their general education teacher colleagues, and administrators from the same school

SWEL Teacher Leader Professional Learning Community

Research on effective professional development for teachers tells us that, in order to create lasting change, support must be consistently provided to educators. The SWEL Teacher Leader Professional Learning Community, or SWEL TLPLC, is designed to do just that. The SWEL TCPLC serves as a learning environment for teacher leaders to reflect on and fine-tune their practice as SWEL coaches in their buildings and districts.

Course sessions will follow the Plan, Do, Study, Act cycle (NIRN, 2020). Meeting protocols will follow the four-step process listed below.

  1. Community-Building: Each meeting will begin with a community-building protocol designed to build positive, collegial, trusting relationships.
  2. Critical Inquiry: Participants will engage in inquiry protocols as they learn new concepts and examine their practices.
  3. Reflection: Participants will develop an on-going reflective practice, which promises to enhance SWEL coaches’ abilities to examine their own leadership practices.
  4. Application: As participants engage in collaborative learning together, they will set short term goals that move them toward meeting the SMART goals outlined in their annual action plan for coaching.

Audience: ESL teachers who have completed the SWEL Certificate Workshop Series. The SWEL TLPLC can be tailored to specific site needs. Please contact swel@tesol.org if you are interested in setting up a SWEL TLPLC for your school or district.

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